Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Another drug company pays big ( 750 million) for fraud.

From the Globe:

Federal prosecutors in Boston yesterday said British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC agreed to pay $750 million to settle civil and criminal charges that it made and sold adulterated drugs, including the antidepressant Paxil, to Medicaid and other government payers.

The settlement, one of the largest ever in a health care fraud case, burnished the reputation of the US attorney’s office in Boston as the premier federal office for investigating health care fraud. It has been responsible for recovering about $6 billion in health care fines and claims in the past decade, about 25 percent of all recoveries nationally.

I know some of you may get tired of reading these type of posts.... but give it 2 minutes to sink in. Some.. drug companies are doing more damage to society than anyone could imagine. And note the figure... the Boston office has recovered 6 BILLION dollars in health care fines in the past 10 years, which is 25% of ALL recoveries. I wonder how much lower health care costs would be if companies stop trying to game the system. This weakens my confidence in the FDA.

I stand by my opinion that there is at least 1/2 BILLION dollars in Massachusetts alone in medical fraud and medicare/medicaid fraud that should be stopped... as soon as possible.

6 Comments:

Where does this $750 mil go? Does it come to MA, and does it go into our budget? Or does this go into some general fund that the legislature spends on holiday parties, political campaign events, and Christmas bonuses?

Good point Anon.. perhaps it's time to increase the fines by a factor of 10....I wonder if that help persuade them to do the right thing when testing, making and marketing drugs to our unsuspecting country.

And yet another record fine and refund has been agreed upon with Verizon Wireless.

Verizon will pay the Feds 25 million and refund 52.8 million to customers of verizon wireless. The settlement is for "mystery fees". Just look at your verizon or any cable bill and see whats at the end.

And today we learn from the MWD, a Hopkinton man has been charged with 9 counts of wire fraud and two tax offenses. The amount he is alleged to have defrauded from individuals is 30 million dollars. He is on the lamb, somehwere in Turkey.

so this weeks total, that I know of, and I'm sure there's plenty more I don't know of, is6 Billion 775 million dollars.